Resettling the First American ‘Climate Refugees’
ISLE DE JEAN CHARLES, La. — Each morning at 3:30, when Joann Bourg leaves the mildewed and rusted house that her parents built on her grandfather’s property, she worries that the bridge connecting this spit of waterlogged land to Louisiana’s terra firma will again be flooded and she will miss another day’s work.
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/us/resettling-the-first-american-climate-refugees.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=c
Commentaire reçu via la mailing-list critical geo forum:
Regarding ’America’s first climate refugees’, the label was also used for Hurricane Katrina evacuees; for example, ▻http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-worlds-first-climate-refugees-5330221.html and for Alaska ►http://www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2013/may/13/newtok-alaska-climate-change-refugees How many firsts can there be?
A large body of literature exists which deconstructs and critiques the entire ’climate change refugees’ discourse showing how problematic it is and why it can do more harm than good—especially doing a disservice to the very people affected. My own contributions to the literature are listed under ’Migration, Islands, and Climate Change’ at ▻http://www.islandvulnerability.org/docs/islandsclimatechange.pdf with many of the papers free to download. Here is a video ▻http://metaceptive.net/footprint-modulation/conference summarising a conference last year which provides up-to-date perspectives on the issue of climate/environmental migrants/refugees.
The science on this topic does not denigrate the real experiences which some Americans and others are having, in terms of being forced to move solely due to climate change, with devastating and unfair impacts. But not all of those identified as ’climate (change) migrants/refugees’ are moving solely due to climate change—or even have climate change as any influence on their migration decisions.
In this Louisiana case, it is more about the apparently first US federal government funding provided for relocating a community due to climate change. Then, we need to ask: What about the communities in Alaska which have been asking for similar support for more than a decade and have not received it? And do the people themselves wish to be called “refugees”? They certainly are not “refugees” by the international law definition, but that is not the only definition to consider. In Alaska, it is clear that climate change is the principal, if not only, reason for the relocation. In Louisiana, how much has urban development, coastal (mis)management, and below-ground resource extraction influenced the wider-scale environmental changes which then affect the local level? Perhaps the answer is “not all at”; perhaps there is influence.
We can help those affected (by climate change and, more importantly, by vulnerability, injustice, and inequity) much more by moving beyond the rhetoric which the media picks up uncritically, thereby ignoring the science which challenges those perspectives and which offers much more robust and meaningful approaches.
Ilan
Twitter @IlanKelman
First US climate refugees get $48 million to move
A first-of-its-kind, $48 million federal grant aims to move the entire community of the sinking Isle de Jean Charles, La., to a drier place.
▻http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2016/0503/First-US-climate-refugees-get-48-million-to-move?cmpid=TW
First U.S. Climate Refugees Fear Rising Seas Will Drown Their Heritage
Native American coastal communities around the U.S. have begun planning moves to higher ground, but worry their ancient ways of life will be lost in the relocation.
▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2016/08/25/first-u-s-climate-refugees-fear-rising-seas-will-drown-their-heritage